An invention developed in Western Australia that enables healthcare practitioners to detect immediately when a baby isn't receiving enough oxygen during labour has doctors excited about its potential to prevent major problems such as birth asphyxia and cerebral palsy.
The patented and consumer co-designed device DelivAssureTM, was developed through a national collaboration including WA medtech company VitalTrace, in partnership with researchers from The University of Western Australia and The University of Sydney.
Professor Jane Pillow, an NHMRC Leadership fellow and senior principal research fellow at UWA's School of Human Sciences said the device provided the first major breakthrough in fetal monitoring techniques during labour and birth for more than 50 years.
After extensive preclinical testing, the device was recently applied for the first time to a baby during labour at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital as part of a world-first clinical trial also being undertaken at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, and at Melbourne's Monash Health and Box Hill Hospital. So far, nine women and their babies have participated in the study.
VitalTrace co-founder and CEO Dr Arjun Kaushik, a UWA medicine graduate, said the device detected the lack of oxygen by providing a continuous signal that tells clinicians about the level of lactate in the baby's blood.
Lactate is the natural substance produced by cells when they use glucose for energy production in the absence of sufficient oxygen.
This new device enables clinicians, for the first time, to continuously monitor babies and their levels of oxygenation during labour," Dr Kaushik said.
This real-time feedback means that, for the first time, health practitioners caring for a woman in labour will be able to detect immediately when a baby is not receiving enough oxygen to the brain."
The device can be applied by an obstetrician or midwife attaching a small electrode sensor into the skin of the baby's scalp once the mother's waters have broken and the baby's head is accessible.
Information is transmitted from the sensor to the monitor using wireless technology, which means the mother can move around freely during labour, secure in the knowledge that her baby is still being monitored.
Other monitoring tools currently in use mean the mother is attached to wires and often more restricted in her ability to move around.
Dr Kaushik said current methods that measured the baby's heart rate during labour had the tendency to be very inaccurate, which resulted in missed diagnosis of fetal brain injury and unnecessary rates of intervention, such as Caesarean sections.
Women who experienced fetal monitoring while giving birth had provided extensive and valuable input into the research, which influenced the design of the invention, he said.
VitalTrace chief medical officer, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sydney and internationally renowned specialist in fetal and maternal health Jonathan Morris said the new device would transform the quality of care given to mothers and babies during labour and birth.
It will provide more accurate information and will be easier to interpret than is possible with current monitoring tools used in labour," Professor Morris said.
That means fewer mothers will need to have unnecessary caesarean sections because of uncertainty about their baby's well-being.
The current high rate of caesarean sections contributes to poor health outcomes for mothers of some newborn babies and imposes a significant financial strain on the healthcare system.
Doctors are incredibly excited about the potential of the DelivAssureTM device to prevent major problems such as birth asphyxia and cerebral palsy that may result when a baby doesn't receive enough oxygen from the placenta during labour."
Cerebral palsy is a condition that affects body movement, affecting an individual's ability to control and coordinate their movements as well as balance, posture and muscle tone. It affects more than 17 million people worldwide and costs the Australian health system over $5 billion dollars each year.
DelivAssureTM has been supported by funding from WA and Australian government grants and private investor funds.
